China (A Chuang Story)
Long ago there was a certain Chuang stonemason. He was famous for his extraordinary skill at his trade. One day a rich man needed some stonecutting done and sent for him. When he got there he saw that his employer lived in a great mansion, was dressed in silk and satin, ate all kinds of delicacies from oceans and mountains, and was waited on my maids and servants. Very envious, the mason gave up working, and wanted only to become such a rich man himself.
A fairy heard his desire and made him a rich man. The mason was deliriously happy.
Some time later, a high-ranking official went out on a tour of inspection, carried in a sedan-chair by his men. He was carried everywhere, surrounded by a great concourse of shouting and yelling retainers, beating drums and gongs. Wherever they went the people bowed and made was for them. His path lay by the mason's door. Puffed up with an upstart's pride, the mason refused to bow himself or kowtow. "I've got just as many servants as he! Why should I bow to him?" he said. Outraged by such impertinence, the official had him bound with ropes, beaten, and fined.
Painfully getting up, the mason said, with a sigh, "So, high-ranking officials are certainly more powerful than I!" Thereupon he swore he wanted only to be a great official.
Again the fairy heard his desire and made him a great official. He was beside himself with joy when the change took place. Following the example of the official he had seen, the mason now rode roughshod over his district, and made all the people hate him.
One day he and his henchmen came to a hillside where they saw a group of pretty young girls. Down they pounced like tigers on helpless lambs. The girls screamed and called, and in the twinkling of an eye, a great crowd of Chuang people rushed up from all sides, bearing swords, axes, and hoes, and did not let him go without giving him a sound thrashing.
Such rough handling from the people put an end to his evil-doing. "Officials, however powerful, are nothing to the Chuang people," he said ruefully, and he longed to be changed back into a Chuang. Once again the fairy heard his desire and helped to bring about the change. The mason was all smiles when it came about.
Every day he went to the hillside with his people, plowing and sowing from morning to night. It was summer, and the sun was as hot as a ball of fire. It scorched his back while he worked, until his head swam. It was indeed past human bearing. In the great waves of heat even the birds and wild beasts hid themselves deep in the mountains, and the water-buffaloes buried themselves up to the neck in muddy water. Only the glistering green rice shoots stood, like the Chuang people, unyielding. The mason came to the conclusion that the sun must be the ruling power in the universe and started to dream of becoming a sun himself. The fairy heard his desire and made him a sun in the sky. To everybody's horror he kept sending forth scorching flames.
Then it so happened a thick black cloud came drifting from the west and his the sun from the earth. "Well," sighed the mason. "Who would have thought that a black cloud is stronger than the sun?" So a black cloud was what he wanted to be now. Again the fairy satisfied him by turning him into a cloud freely scudding across the sky.
What should happen but that a fierce wind arose and blew the cloud to pieces! "I never knew that the wind was so powerful," the mason exclaimed in dismay. "I can hardly find a place to exist in! Let me become a fierce wind, I pray!" Again the fairy helped, and made him into a gale. He blew like a typhoon, uprooting trees and tearing down houses. He blew like a terror.
But as he rushed over the land he was suddenly stopped in his course by a huge rock. However hard he blew, the rock was unmoved. "Well, even a gale can do nothing to a rock," thought the mason. "No one could ever dare bully em any more if I were a rock."
Immediately the fairy turned him into a great rock on top of a high mountain. He no longer had any fear of being bullied. After some time, however, there came a group of masons to the peak where he lay. They looked at the rock and considered it useful material, and started cutting it. The bewildered mason, terrified, turned to the fairy for help. "You'd better be your old self," said the fairy. So he was a mason again.
From then on he worked with a devotion he never knew before, and he became ever faster and better at his trade. More and more people wanted to hire his skill. As time went on, he became very well known, and as a great mason, was held in high respect by everybody in his homeland.
- Folk Tales from China, second series (Peking: Foreign Languages
Press, 1958), pp. 89-92. No copyright notice.
- This story is similar to type 555 folktales.
- Return to the table of contents.
